


the worst day since yesterday

by chatona



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:59:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chatona/pseuds/chatona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the year that never was, life moves on</p>
            </blockquote>





	the worst day since yesterday

It's the mundane things that drive you insane, Jack thinks. He wishes for a shower, an opportunity to lie down. The dirt itches on his skin, the torture under it. He's lost count how many times he died this year, from the Master's hands or a soldier's. His arms and legs tremble, his shoulders ache.

One more day, Jack repeats in his head, closes his eyes and draws back into himself. The training to withstand torture came as a surprise to him as well as his captors. It's one leftover from his lost two years Jack embraces wholeheartedly.

***

Jack smiles, looks straight at the UNIT officer and touches her arm. 'With capable people like you around, I'm sure we'll get this mess sorted out soon,' he says.

The officer pushes a strand of her hair back. There's a blush forming over her cheekbones and her eyes spark when his hand drops to her waist. The pain low in Jack's gut doesn't subside, neither does the restlessness or the desire at the back of his mind, but he kisses her nonetheless.

***

The Doctor clings to the Master's corpse, rocking back and forth and whispering words in a language Jack can't comprehend. He's long stopped crying, his eyes wide and unseeing and yet never leaving the Master's still face.

Jack kneels down next to him, pries his fingers open and away from the Master. 'Let go,' he utters and motions for others to take away the body, wraps the Doctor up in his arms. 'You need to let go,' he says and so the Doctor clings to Jack instead.

***

The Doctor licks a wet stripe along Jack's spine, pushes deeper into him. Jack groans, presses back. They settle on a rhythm, hard and fast and unapologetic. The room is filled with the sounds of sex, their laboured breathing and the rustling of sheets. Jack is surprised they made it to a bed at all. The Doctor holds onto Jack's hips, skin hot under his fingertips and all he can see are flames and darkness and death.

When he comes, he bites down hard on the junction of Jack's neck and lets Jack's wrongness spill over him. It feels like the TARDIS and like home.

***

Jack lies back, reconnects the wires under the control panel of the TARDIS. The Doctor cowers on the ground a few feet beside him, sonic screwdriver in his hand and glasses askew on his nose. He babbles, defense-mechanisms intact again.

Jack is silent. He doesn't want to face the rejection in the Doctor's stance just yet.

***

The TARDIS' hum sounds almost the same again and the Doctor is grateful for her presence at the back of his mind. He ponders where it would be appropriate to burn the Master.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Jack's hand brush along the TARDIS. There's a look in Jack's eyes the Doctor can't decipher, in the tilt of his head. The Doctor thinks it looks like goodbye.

***

Jack and Martha watch the flames from the distance, the wood of the TARDIS in their backs. Martha's gaze doesn't leave the Doctor's sunken form. 'Is he all right?' she whispers, though they both know the answer to that. None of them is all right.

'He'll come back in his own time,' Jack says and Martha nods, shivers from the cold. Jack puts his arm around her shoulder and she huddles close to him. They wait for the Doctor to take them home.

***

The Doctor walks back to the TARDIS slowly. The scent of smoke is heavy in the air and the fire crackles as the scales of wood splinter. The Master's gone and the Doctor's face feels frozen, his muscles too heavy to smile.

Martha touches his arm, looks at him with large and sympathetic eyes. The Doctor turns away, wants to brush her off. Jack catches her eyes, shakes his head. Martha lets go.

It's Jack who feeds the coordinations to the TARDIS, until the Doctor snaps out of it and flies his ship himself.

'The 21th century. My favourite time and place. Here we come,' Jack says with a grin. The Doctor figures it's fake, but Martha returns it.

***

Martha holds the flowers pressed against her chest. Jack thinks they might be a shield, something to hide behind, but Martha is smiling, goes to search for the woman who betrayed her, to forgive her. It reminds Jack of the Doctor.

'She's seen too much,' the Doctor says, pensively and Jack shrugs. 'She's strong.' The Doctor grins, wide and proud. 'That she is, Jack, she really is.'

Jack closes his eyes for a moment, turns to flirt with the florist who sold the flowers to Martha.

***

Jack is leaving and a year ago, the Doctor would have been glad to be rid of him. He asks Jack to stay, but a lot of the blind adoration in Jack's eyes is gone, replaced by something more mature and subdued. Jack declines, salutes and the Doctor realises Jack already kissed him goodbye on the Valiant. He just didn't notice.

As he watches Jack's retreating back, he thinks of hot lips against his and Jack's muscular body stretched out under him.

***

Gwen and Tosh both hug him and he kisses Ianto, Owen makes a face at that. Jack smiles and shushes their questions. He's not ready to tell them what happened, doesn't know if he ever will. He jokes and grins and flirts and evades. If they notice, they don't say anything.

The team crowds around Jack and he knows he's needed here. It feels good.

***

Jack left and Martha left. The Doctor sits in the TARDIS' control room, Martha's mobile phone in the pocket of his coat, next to the sonic screwdriver and the scent of smoke still lingering in his hair.

He allows himself a moment of melodrama, thinks of all that he has lost. The TARDIS hums and the Doctor moves on.

It's what he does. He's a coward and he never stopped running.


End file.
